He wasn't the same man I met all those years ago. My innocent, naive, sweet blue-eyed farm-boy was no longer. He had grown, but I had also learned he was not what I had first perceived him to be. His father killed, his mother terminally ill had passed and he was left alone with his brother to care for.
He had just put up a front, just like me, and when he had trusted me enough he had revealed his whole past. I felt for him, what many people felt for me. It explained a lot, the pain, the hurt and the understanding he carried had come from experience not empathy.
We had much in common, though while I paraded my mother's death as a cause for my continual crusades for justice, he kept his locked up; a silent motivation for justice. I suddenly had understood why he had chased me, helped me to conquer my demons and fight the terror of the past; because he had done it. He had done it and survived.
Chasing and rejecting; that was our routine. He'd chase and come after me but I'd reject and dismiss even though I would like nothing better than accept. The kiss in California had made me ache for him for so long but it was painfully short and desperately wanted it to continue though it couldn't. The kiss had been the start of everything, the start of a courtship, the start of my love for him that would last for eternity.
He chased me, and while I appreciated it; I wasn't ready. I knew that I loved him, but fear of getting hurt had kept that emotion safely locked inside. Woody was a great guy and he could do better than me. But as soon as he mentioned doing just that; I was jealous. Regretfully I had tried to restore my thinking to what it had been before I had fallen in love with him. It didn't work, so I observed from afar even though he was willing to let me get close.
The ring was proof of that. I regret everyday that I rejected it. I was so overwhelmed; I had just sorted through my feelings that I loved Woody and was terrified of the thought and suddenly a beautiful diamond ring was being presented to me. I wanted to but I just couldn't accept it.
The hurt I saw in his eyes, that covered his face had almost broken my heart. I yearned to take it back but you can't take back what's already been said. Nothing could undo the damage that I had done despite the fact that I desperately wanted to undo it.
Then the shooting, where I realised that regardless of how scared I was, nothing could be worse than loosing Woody forever. I was wrong; the thought of letting him go was harder. I told him how much I loved him, wanted him, needed him, but he brushed me off as pity.
That thought hurt, that after all this time; he didn't know me at all. That he thought I was so shallow. But I respected his wishes, though I had my doubts. But after some time we'd rebuilt our relationship only to screw it up at the Lucy Carver Inn.
That experience was one of the best of my life. If I never saw Woody again, I would always have my memories of that night, the passion, love, trust and understanding that had rolled into sexual tension that had been released. I wanted more than anything for him to love me the way I loved him and that night I understood that he did.
It was an amazing experience that I had wanted to repeat and repeat and repeat again. But we hadn't and I realized that although we might both have loved each other, life wasn't going to permit us to make go of it, and there was nothing that I could do about it. I think we both knew that we would always love each other and not move on but we would have to try. Woody and I; we were a couple that would never be a couple.
There wasn't really anything that we could do about it. The ball from my perspective was in Woody's court, and in his perspective; in my court. If we could both make a go of it at the same time, then we might stand a chance, until that miracle came; we would love each other from afar.